Comments on: More School Reality

By: brian

brian — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 07:58:09 +0000

Vouchers are nothing more than kick-backs to the relgious right for their endorsements.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:16:43 +0000

Steve [Modulator], I received a public school education and with it the obligation to pay for the next generation, just as the previous generation paid for me. There aren’t any free lunches, and public education isn’t free. You get what you pay for, and skimping on education means that the next generation won’t have the skills for the jobs needed to keep the country afloat.

When the US began its shift from industrial jobs to information jobs, no one wanted to spend the money to shift public education to deal with this new reality. When a kid sees that what s/he is learning in school has no relationship to the jobs available, the kid loses interest. There was a time when the public school system prepared people for the work place, now it prepares them to go on to another school where they might learn what they need for a job.

We need to stop with all the worthless testing and start bringing public schools in line with the workplace. We are ending up with a group of kids who don’t know how to do anything but take tests, which is not a marketable skill.

This isn’t about being a liberal or conservative, this is about saving the nation which is on its way to third world status.

Most of the school administrative costs that everyone complains about are directly related to fulfilling all of the requirements of “accountability” that people keep passing. The people who complain about the cost of education are usually the source of the additional paperwork that bogs down the system.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:00:18 +0000

I think a pretty good case can be made that they are pretty much a failure at providing an education* and not very good at babysitting which seems to be their dominant activity… – Steve

Steve, I do not believe that is a sustainable assertion in the general case. And to the extent public schools have declined in quality, it is in part because they have been willfully deprived of money by well-intended but wrongheaded people on school boards and in antitax activist groups across the country. Defund the public schools, and you may be sure they will not be satisfactory.

For what it’s worth, I am a product of HISD in Houston. I do not believe the education I received there was compromised in any significant way. Does HISD have problems these days? No doubt. Please show me how diverting taxpayers’ money to failing private schools will help the public schools, which are, after all, the government’s obligation to the taxpaying public.

Locally we’ve had some charter schools that turned out to be nothing more than scams. Don’t get me started! They are shining examples of what happens when your government says, “Here’s some money; we’re not going to monitor what you do with it or what kind of educational results you produce with it.”

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 05:40:46 +0000

Hmmmm, seems like handing our tax dollars to government groups without accountability should also be considered criminally stupid.

Case in point: well, let’s start with the Iraq debacle and then we can go forward or backward from there ad infinitum.

OK, I know your were talking about education….

So even if they are better are public schools good enough to support in their current form?

I think a pretty good case can be made that they are pretty much a failure at providing an education* and not very good at babysitting which seems to be their dominant activity…

*unfortunately for the public schools a majority of their students either aren’t very interested in education or have achieved their educational goals by junior high or earlier.